Technology: A World History

by Headrick, Daniel R.

• ISBN13: 9780195338218
• ISBN10: 0195338219
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-04-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Today technology has created a world of dazzling progress, growing disparities of wealth and poverty, and looming threats to the environment. Technology: A World History offers an illuminating backdrop to our present moment--a brilliant history of invention around the globe. Historian DanielR. Headrick ranges from the Stone Age and the beginnings of agriculture to the Industrial Revolution and the electronic revolution of the recent past. In tracing the growing power of humans over nature through increasingly powerful innovations, he compares the evolution of technology in differentparts of the world, providing a much broader account than is found in other histories of technology. We also discover how small changes sometimes have dramatic results--how, for instance, the stirrup revolutionized war and gave the Mongols a deadly advantage over the Chinese. And how the nailedhorseshoe was a pivotal breakthrough for western farmers. Enlivened with many illustrations, Technology offers a fascinating look at the spread of inventions around the world, both as boons for humanity and as weapons of destruction.

Author Biography

Daniel R. Headrick is Professor of History and Social Science at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

Table of Contents

Editors' Preface	p. vii
Stone Age Technology	p. 1
Hydraulic Civilizations (4000-1500 BCE)	p. 17
Iron, Horses, and Empires (1500 BCE-500 CE)	p. 35
Postclassical and Medieval Revolutions (500-1400)	p. 51
An Age of Global Interactions (1300-1800)	p. 71
The First Industrial Revolution (1750-1869)	p. 91
The Acceleration of Change (1869-1939)	p. 111
Toward a Postindustrial World (1939-2007)	p. 130
Chronology	p. 149
Notes	p. 151
Further Reading	p. 155
Web Sites	p. 159
Index	p. 161
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